Proposal to curb trash pickup in Hampton opposed

HAMPTON — Hampton Beach Area Chamber of Commerce President Doc Noel said his organization's 20-person board of directors and 400-plus members "vehemently oppose" stopping commercial trash collection in town.

Nick B. Reid

HAMPTON — Hampton Beach Area Chamber of Commerce President Doc Noel said his organization's 20-person board of directors and 400-plus members "vehemently oppose" stopping commercial trash collection in town.

"It's just not the right thing to do," Noel said.

He commended the beach's five-star status as named by the National Resources Defense Council and said, "now one of the cleanest beaches in the country may not have their trash picked up on a reasonable basis," if an effort by one selectman succeeds in ending a long-standing but unusual system in which some businesses have their trash collected seven days a week without paying anything beyond their taxes.

In a plea to the selectmen and everyone watching, Hampton Beach Village District Chairman Chuck Rage said the move would invite a chaotic mess of trash collection trucks and require the construction of a bigger transfer station.

Though his address was aimed at selectmen, the board hasn't proposed any changes to trash collection. It shot down an effort by Selectman Mary-Louise Woolsey that would have eliminated commercial trash pickup, then voted to pursue a system in which anyone requiring more than one cart pickup a week would pay extra, then backtracked on that vote, so no warrant article from selectmen will go before voters in March. Woolsey said she will submit a petitioned warrant article to eliminate commercial trash pickup, even as Selectman Phil Bean criticized her effort as undermining the rest of the board.

Business owners argue that they represent a tremendous portion of the tax base, while requiring relatively little resources compared to households with several children in the school system.

"Never have so few given so much to so many and asked for so little in return," said HBVD Commissioner Robert Ladd.

Selectmen Chairman Dick Nichols contested the school argument, saying it's a constitutional requirement to provide public education, while the only requirement of the town with trash is to have a transfer station where residents can bring theirs. He also challenged the argument that the beach would be overwhelmed by trash trucks, noting that when the town bid out its recycling contract in 2010, only one company responded. Nevertheless, he said, completely eliminating trash collection is a "bad solution."

Nichols said there would be "unintended consequences" from stopping trash collection, including the fact that about 30 percent of the businesses at the beach don't have space for a Dumpster, which "kind of puts you at the mercy of the trash collection companies." He said he "shudder(s) to think" of what kind of prices businesses would have to pay for seven-day-a-week collection.

Nichols and Selectman Mike Pierce previously voted to pursue a system in which properties are charged for anything beyond one pickup a week. Resident Norm Silberdick has said he intends to offer his own petitioned warrant article encouraging that system.

Bean said he opposed any changes to the current trash collection system and wished to "disassociate (him)self" from any petitioned warrant article offered by Woolsey.

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